Skip to main content

Knowledge Center

Research and Publications

Solution Based Casework research: Parent, worker, supervisor survey

DSHS asked Partners for Our Children to conduct an independent evaluation of whether Washington State's new child welfare casework model improves outcomes for children and families. These are the results of the baseline survey of parents, social workers and supervisors.

 

Youth aging out of foster care:

Young people who "age out" of foster care as teens face major challenges into their early 20's, often unable to complete their education, or find housing and jobs, according to a national study conducted by Partners for Our Children at the University of Washington School of Social Work and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. In most states -- including Washington -- foster care services typically terminate at age 18, leaving the often unprepared young people on their own. This report is the fourth in a series that followed over 700 youth in foster care for six years, from about age 18 to about age 24. Previous reports in this series can be found on the Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago website.

One week after the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 became law, Partners for Our Children and the Juvenile Law Center convened a meeting in Seattle to discuss how this new legal framework could be used to smooth the transition of foster youth into adulthood. Although the timing of the convening was coincidental, it allowed participants to use FCSIA's new context to address the legal and court framework for older foster youth, as well as the issues of housing, employment, education, physical and behavioral health, and permanency planning.

Fostering connections after age 18: Report of a convening to address housing, Health care, education and other transition to adulthood issues
Partners for Our Children and the Juvenile Law Center
October, 2008

 

Foster parent  recruitment and retention: 

Like many other child welfare systems across the country, Washington State is trying to do a better job of recruiting and retaining foster parents. As part of this effort, the Department of Social and Health Services Children's Administration asked Partners for Our Children to identify challenges and opportunities for improvement.